I think I can weasel out of this one. If you've been working with computers as long as I have, then you've probably heard a disk drive (not called a "hard disk" because there were no floppies back then) referred to as a "memory device". If you aren't horribly young, then you've probably heard a hard disk referred to as a "random-access device"1. So, in a situation like this (where we are discussing such old technology), it isn't inappropriate to refer to a hard disk as a "random-access memory" device.

So, for the purposes of this poll, just think of "RAM" as "data storage I can carry around in my pocket" and "harddisk" as "persistant storage inside my PC". I usually like to keep the poll choices short so they fit in the nodelet better.

And I didn't mean "Digital Network Architecture" for "DNA". I meant "deoxyribonucleic acid". Each poll needs at least one or two "creative" choices. I doubt anyone here has music stored in a holographic cube either. "DNA" was the second-to-last choice I came up with. I wondered if it would cause confusion and considered spelling it out or using "RNA" instead. A little confusion never killed anyone.2 By the popularity of that choice, I suspect most understood what I meant. (:

1 Well, a hard disk drive isn't really a random-access device. It isn't a sequential-access device like a 1-track tape. An 8-track tape is mostly a sequential-access device except that it has, well, 8 tracks, that you can switch between (gee, you've probably never seen an 8-track player much less used one; just trust me) without having to seek the tape. A hard disk is an awful lot like a random-access device because you can switch heads almost instantly and the time to seek the heads to a different cylinder and the time to wait for the platter to spin over the desired sector are not huge orders of magnitude longer than the time it takes to actually read/write the data.

The techno project called The Shamen produced a song which is translated from a kind of DNA chain. It is called "S2 Translation" and can be found on their LP titled "Axis Mutatis". Good stuff.

Quote: "S2 Translation" is probably the most interesting piece on the album because of the way it was constructed. The MIDI sequence was created by the use of data from "the amino acid characteristics and the DNA coding for protein S2, a receptor for serotonin and other tryptamines." This incredible feat was accomplished through the use of a computer program devised by Colin.Edit: I have found a snippet from the song. Enjoy!

It copies the music from the disk drive, into 32 megabytes of RAM, and plays it out of there, allowing the disk to spin down between songs. Battery life is better, since the amount of moving parts is significantly decreased.